The Newcastle Herald's editorial team strives to ensure that the whole of every newspaper is relevant to readers in the Hunter and Central Coast, as the people in the area rely on their daily newspaper for authoritative news, information and analysis about their community, their society, their country and their world.

The Newcastle Herald Classifieds are the only classifieds published six days a week across the region.

Newcastle Newspapers, publishers of The Newcastle Herald, The Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Star, the Port Stephens Examiner, the Lakes Mail and the Myall Coast Nota, also produces a replica digital edition of the Newcastle Herald, Monday to Saturday.

From humble beginnings

The Newcastle Herald had its origins in two early newspapers, The Newcastle Chronicle and Hunter River District News and The Miners Advocate and Northumberland Recorder.

Established in 1858, the Chronicle began as a weekly journal carrying mining, shipping, court and some small items of local news. It cost just sixpence.

In the years that followed it took on more of the appearance of a newspaper, became a bi-weekly and then tri-weekly, and by 1876 its last edition was priced at two pence.

In 1873 in Nelson Street, Plattsburg (now part of Wallsend), The Miners Advocate and Northumberland Recorder was first published.

Under the guidance of founder John Miller Sweet, the paper flourished and by 1876 it was a tri-weekly selling for three pence with a circulation of 4000 copies a week.

John Sweet's father-in-law, James Fletcher, believed the region was ready for a bigger newspaper published daily and persuaded his son-in-law to expand.

The Advocate moved to Bolton Street, Newcastle, and on April 3, 1876, the first copies of The Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners Advocate hit the streets.

The first Herald and Advocate masthead was ornate and carried a sketch of a colliery pit-top, including poppet head and chimney.

Such ornate mastheads stayed with The Herald for 104 years, the last major change being on October 6, 1980, when a more modern and simple masthead was introduced, dropping the "Morning" and "Miners Advocate" from the title.

This was the masthead that appeared until 1998 when, in July, the newspaper became "the compact with impact" after going tabloid in size. The move to tabloid was seen as an immediate success.